Beasts of Burden Returns in One-Shot Comic

Although I’m a fan of book-format comics, such as the beautiful Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites collection, sometimes, you need to buy the comics. In this case, it’s unclear how many more Beasts of Burden stories there will be in future, but there’s at least one more one-shot coming.

Beasts of Burden: What the Cat Dragged In is co-written by Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer and painted by Jill Thompson. Their work with these supernatural pets has won several Eisner Awards, for Best Single Issue, Best Publication for Teens, and Thompson as Best Painter.

The concept is cute but scary — a group of neighborhood dogs fight mystical monsters to protect their home and friends. Only this time, the focus is on the felines. As the promotional material has it, “When curiosity gets the best of Burden Hill’s cats (and one reluctant raccoon), sleeping demons are awakened and black magic is unleashed on the town of Burden Hill.”

Darken has also been asking for letters for a text column for the issue, where he reveals the issue aims to “answer the question about where Dymphna disappears to at night.”

Beasts of Burden: What the Cat Dragged In will be in stores May 4, and you can preorder it from your local comic shop with Diamond code MAR16 0030. (And since there have been three other uncollected one-shots — Neighborhood Watch in August 2012, Hunters & Gatherers in March 2014, and a Hellboy crossover in October 2010 — there might be a second book coming that reprints them all.)